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This blog serves my columns as an archive, a place to add footnotes,data sources and drafts of my weekly 550 word column for the Sky Hi News.(www.skyhidailynews.com) Often these drafts are posted on my Facebook page, The Muftic Forum.. To learn more about the posting subject, click onto the links at the end of the posting.Blog will be on vacation May 28-June 25 2018, with sporadic to no postings during that time.
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Friday, June 29, 2012

The GOP’s attack on Obamacare has taken on a new tactic since the Supreme Court ruled it constitutional. They no longer could make the argument that the Affordable Care Act should be repealed on constitutional grounds. They now have a new one. “ It is a tax increase. Yes, Obamacare in its entirety is a tax. Taxes are evil. Therefore it should be overturned.”

Come on, GOP. Stop spinning. Consumers have a choice: they can pay the penalty for not having health insurance or they can get health insurance, made affordable by Obamacare The sick-deniers who believe in their own immortality and their ability to turn up at an emergency room if things get really bad are the only ones who will pay the mandate tax if they persist in being irresponsible.. The tax is a penalty, but it is also a way to get slackers to pay for services. It is those seeking a free lunch that the GOP wants to protect.

Yes, the GOP will now make the case that it is wrong to tax free riders and free loaders who cost us all money by going naked with insurance on some misplaced faith that they will never get sick, be in an accident, or die in a way that would put them in a hospital. We are already paying for those slackers who refuse to take individual responsibility. We are also paying for those who cannot afford to buy health insurance because they do not have enough income. The medical costs of the free loaders and the near poor costs are passed onto insured families in higher premiums, higher copay and less coverage to the tune of $10000.

The medical free loaders are not the only free loaders in this country. Look in your mirror; you may be one of those who want the services but do not want to pay for them in taxes or fees in the future. Colorado Springs cut their 2012 firefighting budget and the deeply GOP El Paso County sends those to Congress who are sworn to a budget that would cut non discretionary spending that includes cutting federal money for firefighting and disaster funding. Post the Waldo Canyon fire there, I wonder what they do with their budget next year. I wonder, too, if their Congressman sees any connection.

George W Bush knew this. That is why he launched two wars and gave seniors a welcome relief in drug care benefits, and got a large reduction in taxes for the rich without paying for it in taxes or any other measure. That is why he busted a balanced budget and ran up the deficit. He was under some assumptions that tax cuts would stimulate the economy enough to create tax revenue to offset this. How wrong he was. Even before the Great Recession of the last years of his administration, the assumption was faulty and the economy had not been stimulated and unemployed was already ticking up. The crash of 2008 made recovery based on increased revenue to the treasury a laugh, and 40% of the current deficit is the result of the loss to tax revenue because of the recession that reduced taxpayers incomes and profits.

Polls show that overwhelmingly numbers of voters want their pre-existing conditions to be covered, to be able to afford insurance if their employer does not provide it, or the insurance plan they are on cannot kick you off if you are sick, or expenses surpass the lifetime limit, or if they are laid off or even fired. They do want their college age kids to be on their insurance policies. They just did not want the package plan of Obamacare that figured a way to get these benefits paid for with a some more taxes on the rich,, and making uninsured take responsibility for getting insurance and paying into the system as much as their income level would allow.

So, GOP, now is the time to show your payfors for the benefits consumers your own supporters want and need. You should know by now there is no such thing as a free lunch..

Mitt Romney's points raised in the press conference post the Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act, called Obamacare by many, are in quotation marks.

”Obamacare raises taxes by $500 billion and throws us into greater debt” . The Congressional Budget Office, says the net savings to the debt of Obamacare over 10 years will be $230 billion and 1 $trillion in the second decade.The tax related to the mandate applies for freeriders who want to shun getting health insurance . They can avoid the tax by signing up for insurance and if they cannot afford it, they will get a subsidy. There are no excuses for not taking individual responsibility and paying into the system as they can.

Polls show the individual parts of Obamacare are popular and the public wants them. Obamacare solves problems; the GOP has no plan B yet that solves the same problems.

“20 million will lose current insurance they like. " It is not clear which and who will lose since employerinsurance is not touched, However, employer provided insurance will be improved. That kind of insurance imposed lifetime caps, allowed consumers to be kicked off insurance for getting sick, had high (and getting higher) deductibles, co pays for preventative care such as mammograms, colonoscopies, prostate screening…Instead, those problems are corrected and whatever insurance they get will be better than what they have now because such practices will now be ended.

“Job killer? “ Those who are actually afraid to expand must have swallowed Fox fear tactics .Demand is driving the job expansion and small businessmust be ignorant that all but 1 to 2% are exempted from having to provide health insurance for their employees, if they ever did. If they do it now, they will get a hefty tax credit to offset the cost.

“Obamacare puts federal government between you and your doctor". Holy cats.Obamacare gives 30 million a doctor who never had one before and nothing in the law doe tells doctors what they can and cannot do.

“Pre-existing conditions; I too want to cover them, but by some other way”. The mandate is the funding mechanism.Obamacare funded a temporary interim high risk pool on a state by state basis so all would be covered.Those pools only bring the cost down to “normal” insurance, which over 20% in Colorado cannot afford , anyway.Also, the qualifications for those to access high risk pools are very restrictive.Romney needs to come clean on the pay for and details of who would be covered to what extent.Until he does, this is simply setting a goal, but that is not a plan either for funding and extent of coverage even for those who do not have insurance now.

Romney said he wants Americans to have access to affordable insurance on a state basis.Does the federal government pay for this?How do the states pay for it?What standards would Romney require?If no minimum standards are set, then such words are useless.If there are standards set federally, that is what Obamacare does now, while also giving the state latitude in administration and expanding benefits.Obamacare also gives states the financial means to do it. How would Romney fund that?

"Consumers will lose choice of their doctors". Obamacare does not take away any choice of anything from anyonewho already has insurance. A person who has no insurance, has no choice; they will now. Obamacare will now give them a choice among private insurance plans and they will receive a subsidyper income level to make it affordable.“Death panel’s lost their teeth early in the game and cannot keep anyone from getting the kinds of care they want.

"Obama care does not save costs."Come, come.We are already paying for the uninsured because their alternatives, ER and charity medicine, are passed on to us in higher premiums.Now, the uninsured will be paying something at least into the system and will not need to seek ER medicine for preventative care and treatment for minor ailments. The preventative care will be a very big cost savings to the health system in general. Estimates by the CBO are that Medicare will gain 12 years of life due to the cost savings to the health care system in general by Obamacare.

Seniors:the donut hole coverage by Obamacare saves each senior $600 each a year in drug costs. Romney has never addressed this, either whether he would have covered the donut hole or, if so, how will he pay for it.

Some practical considerations. If either the President or the Senate retain the ability to veto or to filibuster, no matter what the Teaparty does in the House, their’s is a futile effort.This is why it the Democrats must gear up their efforts to protect Obamacare and to sell it better than they have, especially at the Congressional and Senatorial level and to the public in general. Romney cannot repeal the law himself, regardless of his slogan of repealing it on day one. It takes a Congress, too, and in particular, a Senate with one party controlling more than 60 votes....highly unlikely that the GOP could pull that one off in November.

The bottom line is that no one will have to go bankrupt or lose their houses again because they cannot pay their medical bills.The largest number seeking bankruptcy because of medical bills are those who have insurance now that is so inadequate and restrictive. That will change.Care providers who are left holding the bag because of patients' bankruptcy or writing off charges will now see their costs go down, with savings passed onto currently insured.Furthermore, we will have ended the tragedy of the uninsured being more likely to die earlier than those insured because they neither had access to health care or prevention and screenings.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Thursday the Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare” to many). If the Court upholds the law, consumers will win. If the Court throws out the entire law or part of it, all consumers, those with insurance and those without now, will lose something.

If the Court overturns the entire law, seniors will lose coverage of the drug donut hole, all consumers will lose required coverage of pre-existing conditions, and the currently 30 million uninsured will lose affordable health care insurance and access to preventative care and screening. Insurance premiums will have no brakes on future increases since costs savings features will die, too.

There will be a financial hit to all consumers if 30 million uninsured today will not be able to afford health insurance. The uninsured will continue to have a greater chance to die early, to seek care in the ER for a bad cold or for an advanced disease because they could not afford or seek preventative care or have access to a doctor. Hospitals and doctors will continue to bury their losses in higher operating costs that are passed on to the insurers who charge us, the insured, higher premiums. Estimates are that today's insured families are paying $1,000 more a year to cover the uninsured and that cost, higher copays, and reduced coverage would worsen if the now uninsured are not covered.

Some Obamacare benefits already in effect may survive even if the whole law is struck down, but only for those who can afford insurance. Major insurers have already pledged to eliminate lifetime limits and end co-pays for mammograms, prostate screening and colonoscopies for their customers. The rest of us will be out of luck.

If the Court throws out only the mandate, the harm to all consumers will depend upon how many healthy opt to go without insurance. All insurance premiums would likely rise to some extent and coverage of pre-existing conditions and access to affordable insurance could be in jeopardy. The rest of the law could soldier on for a while.

There is a question whether pre-existing conditions and insuring the uninsured will still be economically feasible because the mandate is their essential funding mechanism. In order for an insurance company to cover pre-existing conditions and to keep rates lower for all, they must spread the risk in a large pool that includes the sick and the healthy. The healthy paying into the pool offsets the cost of caring for the sick and if the healthy do not participate, the tab must be picked up by insurers of everyone, insured or uninsured now. States that have implemented insurance market reforms without an individual mandate – such as New York, New Jersey, and Washington – have seen premiums rise substantially. Private insurers claim so many healthy would opt out, that the only ones left in the pool will be the sick and those with pre-existing conditions and they will eventually go broke. Others think only 1 to 2 percent will free ride, but that loss still must be covered by someone.

Would Obamacare harm consumers? One myth is consumers would lose their ability to choose their doctors. Wrong. For those insured by Medicare, Medicaid, or employers, it will be no different than it is now. Those receiving subsidies to pay for insurance will have a choice of many private insurance plans. Death panels were debunked and defanged long ago and most small businesses are exempted from providing employees insurance.

What if the law is upheld by the Court, with or without the mandate approval? Gov. Romney and the GOP are pledged to repeal it, but they have no comparable plan B. Unless they give us details on a replacement plan ,including funding, they are simply blowing hot air.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Mitt Romney is positioning himself as the white knight riding to the defense of small business.

His campaign and His GOP cohorts cite polls that claim small business will not invest or grow because they are so uncertain about the future. It's more of a tribute to the GOP's successful twisting of facts and deceit than it is a reflection of reality. That President Obama is anti-small business is a great trick of propaganda speak.

To make their point, they cite some statistics purporting to show that small business has suffered because of Obama's policies. However, those figures they cite are wacked. As the saying goes, “liars can figure and figures can lie.” Glenn Kessler, fact checker for the Washington Post, awarded three Pinocchios out of four for their claim and wrote: “The bottom line is that experts at the agency that generated the data and the organization that analyzed it, as well as the person who used it in congressional testimony, all say Romney is starting with the wrong date. By using the 2008 numbers, Romney essentially is comparing pre-recession figures with post-recession figures, not data that reflects what happened under President Obama. Just as with job creation under this president, the results starting from 2009 are not great, showing a slight overall decline and then modest improvement once the recession ended. As the president well knows, that uncertain result has made for a challenging re-election campaign. But Romney has goosed his figure so much that it has little credibility.”

The line trumpeted by the GOP and Romney is that Obamacare would create such a financial burden on small business and taxes would rise if he is re-elected. That is horse feathers. In either case of personal taxes and health care, only 2 to 3 percent of small business people in the highest brackets will see any impact. Here's the truth about Obamacare. If a small business has less than 50 employees, they do not have to provide insurance, but if they wish to do it anyway, they will get a large tax credit. So do not blame the provisions of Obamacare for causing the uncertainty, blame GOP's deceitful fear mongering. More horse feathers: Most small businesses have taxes levied as part of their personal income. Even if Bush tax cuts were restored and returned to the Clinton era, if a family's personal income is less than $250,000 per year, taxes would not increase. Neither Obama nor Romney have any plans to increase taxes to the middle class, anyway. What small businesses should fear is the Ryan budget/deficit reduction plans. If they were passed by a GOP Congress and signed by a President Romney on nearly day one, there is almost a unanimous opinion among economists we would slide back into recession, just like Europe did with their austerity programs. That would be a demand killer with a disastrous blow to small businesses, which depend on middle class customers having enough extra change in their pockets to buy their goods and services. In the past three and a half years, Republicans in Congress have talked a good game, but voted the other way. They are speaking with a forked tongue Before the Tea Party grabbed control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections, Obama was able to get his agenda passed to help small business and the Republicans in Congress voted against every single one of them, including a new tax credit for hiring unemployed workers, bonus depreciation tax incentives to support new investment, 75 percent exclusion of small business capital gains, expansion of limits on small business, and passed the small business jobs bill: Tax cuts, loans backed through the Small Business Administration (SBA) and loans backed by the Treasury Department through the newly credited Small Business Lending Fund ($30 billion fund for small community banks).

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Feigned ignorance and illiteracy is the GOP’s case against “Obamacare”.They love to spread ignorance and then report polls thatclaim small business is not spending because they will not hire because of the cost of Obamacare.Their case is to throw out the health care reform law if the Supreme Court upholds its constitutionality because it just has too many words and is just too complex for the public to understand.Even one of the Supreme Court justices made some remark that “do you mean I have to read the whole thing?”

On the other hand, the Obama administration has made sausage out of sausage, muddling their case and not bothering to counter the ignorance spread by the GOP trying either to scare the wits out of seniors with the bogus claims of death panels and a horrible burden on small business.The death panel scare tactics have been somewhat diminished, but the ignorance they are spreading about burden on small business is scaring the pants off of them. No wonder small business opposes it, but ignorance is no excuse nor is illiteracy and the Obama administration should just not let these kinds of intentional befuddlement go unchallenged.

Here is why. No matter how the Court rules, Obama loses.If the court approves his health reform bill in toto, the 2/3 of American people who had hoped it would have been found unconstitutional and oppose the reform, will blame him for the monster bill they neither understand or they fear what they have been told by the GOP campaign of deceit of the dire provisions that just might gore their oxen. If it only strikes down the mandate, there will be repercussions which few understand and the GOP will continue to exploittheir ignorance. Romney will continue the debate with his swearing to repeal it in Congress if he is elected.The war will not be over throughout the campaign..

If the law is struck down by the Court , there will be egg all over the face of our constitutional law professor President and frankly he will look incompetent.He is going to have to sell Obamacare all over again as a good thing and then accuse Romney of wanting to cause our health system to be more expensive and sicker.He could charge Romney with wanting to deprive 30 million of the ability to afford health care, running up the cost of health care for those who already have it by having to pay for ER health for the uninsured in higher insurance premiums, leaving those laid off and losing employer’s insurance without any coverage after COBRA runs out, and making coverage of pre-existing conditions unaffordable for government or anyone else.

Romney now piously proclaims says he wants to cover pre-existing conditions.Where’s the pay-for, Mitt? That is what the mandate is supposed to do…enlarge the pool, require healthy to pay into the system, which makes it economically feasible for the private insurers tocover the cost of covering pre-existing conditions. Without the mandate, how do you propose to pay for coverage of pre-exisitng conditions? You knowthe problem. That is core to the Massachusetts system you set up and the rationale for the mandate.Shame on promoting such ignorance when you know better..

The first chore for Pres. Obama to talk about the burden of supplying employee insurance now and how the burden will be taken off the shoulders of small business.Has everyone forgotten that small businesses are exempted from having to provide insurance for their employees?That message has gotten lost in the Romney campaign of fear and deception and needs to be setstraight by the Obama supporters ASAP.

My column in the Sky Hi News today
have heard arguments this campaign season that I have not heard since the 1960 debates over President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty.

One repeated often by conservatives is “it is immoral for government to help the poor because we are making them dependent.” That is a fools gold kind of morality, lots of glittering rationale for those who care about the poor but still want to feel good about themselves while they support policies that hurt them.

Mitt Romney expresses concern for the poor from one side of his mouth: “I am not worried about the poor because they have a safety net” and “I have an absolute moral commitment to help every American help themselves”( by providing them jobs). Out of the other side of his mouth he proposes to poke holes in the safety net and make cuts in other programs that make it much more difficult for the poor to help themselves.

These comments appear to be Romney's response to the Catholic bishops calling it immoral to cut the social safety net in order to pay for the tax benefits to the rich and higher defense spending as the Ryan/House GOP budget proposes, and Romney called “marvelous.” Romney's own particular spin is it is more moral to provide jobs so the poor can “help themselves” than to make them dependent on government assistance.

No one can argue that work is better than welfare for those who are able to work and have the qualifying skills. Clinton-era welfare reforms did much to address this. However, the fix that Romney proposes is a flub. He bases his case on economic theories that have never worked well to create jobs in an economy recovering from a recession, he failed to apply his self-extolled job creating expertise to public policy, and he has a disconnect from realities of the poor's ability to find work.

Romney supports economic theories of trickle down and European-like austerity that have failed to create jobs in the past. Gov. Romney had a dismal job creation record in Massachusetts and when he left office, unemployment was still higher than the national average. Pumping up “job creators” with deregulation and low taxes does not necessarily spring loose investment in manufacturing capacity unless business anticipates more demand.

But Romney's plans are demand killers. Fighting Obama's jobs bill and/or any aid to rehire state and federal employees, such as teachers, firefighters and police, the core of GOP austerity plans, leaves less money in consumer pockets to buy products and services.

When Europe undertook austerity cold turkey, demand dropped and unemployment soared, a pertinent example. The conservative line on the “dependence” issue is, “If we reduce their safety net, more poor will go to work.” Even if jobs are created, will the poor benefit? Reducing access to a good education (Per Romney: “we do not need more (teachers)” and good nutritional brain food needed to learn, we are guaranteed pools of manual laborers who do not have the skills to be hired in today's or tomorrow's tech economy.

The GOP disconnect: Most of these safety net programs are for children that give them tools to escape dependence. Three-quarters of food stamp recipients are families with children. Of the nutrition programs for the poor (8.7 million recipients), 4.3 million are women with children, 2.2 million with infants. National school lunch programs: 30.5 million kids benefit. Children's health programs (CHIP) keep them healthy enough to go to school and Head Start gets them ready to enter first grade. By reducing money to these programs, we guarantee more poor do not have good nutrition needed to learn, or to gain the ability to qualify for jobs Republicans hope to create.

Romney and the GOP are trying to fool well meaning conservatives, but presenting their plans for the poor as a jobs program or a moral plus is a shameful deception.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

There is an ad running in Colorado on behalf of Pres. Obama’s reelection that is an opportunity to make a point it besides the one it intended. It underscores the fear that loss of a job means loss of health care and the lesson is that health care reform would eliminate that fear. The ad features an older woman with Parkinson’s like symptoms who said that when Bain capital (Mitt Romney’s firm) bought the profitable company for which she had worked for many years, she lost her health insurance and pension, even though she was 2 and a half years from retiring. The punch line: “Mitt Romney…….he made me sick”. The point: Romney did not care about the damage his brand of capitalism caused to human beings. As we wait for the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Health Care Act (“Obamacare” to the disaffected), we should also understand that if the woman had lost her employer provided health insurance and income, she could have received health care she could afford even if she had a pre-existing condition if ‘obamacare’ were in effect. That fear…loss of job means loss of health care.. is a fundamental dread to those who face a job loss or change and that advantage of health care reform is rarely highlighted or understood.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

According to recent polls, President Obama has plateaued at 48 percent, with Mitt Romney trailing slightly.

After a boost earlier this year, the job creation rate is disappointing though the economy is still growing slightly and jobs are being added. Economists predict recovery will limp along until November in the U.S.

To win decisively in November, Obama must convince more voters GOP/Romney plans to heal the economy going forward are the wrong solutions and his plans are the right ones.

Last week former President Bill Clinton raised a ruckus when he criticized Obama for taking an anti-business tone by dwelling on Romney's mixed job creating record at Bain Capital. Lost in the resulting noise was a very important point Clinton made that could be the key to the president's winning the argument about the economy.

Clinton opined that Obama's plan for improving the economy was better than Romney's. That approach has real potential.

Such a comparison should include more than rehashing the “trickle down economics vs. relief to the middle class” debate. The GOP's plan to stimulate growth is lowering taxes on the rich because they are the “job generators” and their wealth will trickle down to the rest but paid for by cutting programs that are perks for the middle class. Never mind the trickle trick never worked well, but history is not much of a political teacher.

Romney's newest argument is that if the president's policies had worked, we “would be much better along in the recovery.” That line is full of holes. The president was unable to do all he wanted to do because of obstructionist Republican Party control of the House, defeating the bill that would have added 2 million jobs. Obama could also argue that if Romney had been president we would have lost 3 million auto industry jobs because Romney's solution was to let the industry go bankrupt.

The other is that the GOP approach of nearly complete reliance on cutting government services was similar to the European austerity plans that resulted in loss of jobs, double dip recession or zero growth, and higher debt, and lowered demand. One wonders how much worse unemployment and the economy would be now if Romney had controlled the White House.

The GOP gives Obama no credit for coming so far along in the recovery, either. To Republicans, “partial success is total failure.” At least Obama's stimulus plan succeeded in reaching the goals he set in early 2009 when the depth of the recession was unknown and his stimulus/tax cut combination did create jobs. In spite of the GOP obstructionism, 4 million private sector jobs have been added compared to the 700,000 per month we were losing. The economy is growing , the banking system and corporate profits are robust.

Romney has tried to head off any comparison of his plans with the failed European approach by saying he would only make changes “gradually.” “Gradual” is not what the Tea Party, the Republican base, or the under- and un-employed seek. Romney could find himself butting heads with his party's right wing on that one. Granted, Romney's plans are similar to the GOP plans that would require cutting spending drastically, depending too heavily on fundmental changes in Social Security and Medicare systems, back door privatization by using vouchers, and higher copays, while increasing defense spending.

Obama could also embrace the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles commission that would keep the entitlement system in place we have now, but would simply gradually raise the retirement age and cut defense spending. If he adopted the Simpson-Bowles debt reduction recommendations now, he would be in even better shape to argue he has the right solution and Romney has the wrong one.

About Me

Felicia Muftic is a political columnist with the Sky Hi Daily News, Grand County, Colorado. She writes on current events from a pragmatic, fact based, reasoned perspective.
Felicia has nearly 50 years of involvement in politics, finance,and consumer affairs as either a fly on the wall in international, national, state and local levels or a participant.
Parallel to all of this is intense involvement for over 50 years in the the political process, serving in both cabinet and staff in the administration of Mayor Federico Pena . Partially educated in Europe and married to physician-refugee from the Balkans, her interests are not confined to US domestic problems, but she also has a world view and experiences which are often reflected in her columns.
Felicia Muftic es un columnista político del diario Sky News Hola, Grand County, Colorado. Felicia tiene casi 50 años de participación en la política, las finanzas y de asuntos del consumidor, ya sea como una mosca en la pared en la internacional, nacional, estatal y local o de un participante. Para más información, visite www.mufticforum.com